“Every year since I took over [Doctor Who] I’ve been trying to get the Zygons in and then I thought ‘Well, it’s the 50th…’

The Zygons are beautifully designed monsters, they are so wonderful… We barely changed the design at all because it was so good.”

He also added:

“Obviously the Daleks had to be there, the Daleks had to come to the party because they’re really scary and are part of the iconography of Doctor Who – possibly the central part – so we had to have them.

”And in a way it was fun to bring back Doctor Who’s biggest monster success ever, the Daleks, and then go to maybe the smallest monster success [the Zygons] – they were only in it once but everyone remembers them – great monsters, great outfits… and they have these nice whispery voices…”

Paul McGann may not be appearing in the 50th anniversary special, but he is still hopes that the Eighth Doctor will return to TV some day. While speaking about The Day of the Doctor, McGann told Flicks and the City:

“I was a bit dismayed because I always wanted to be in a 3D anything — even like Jaws 3D! I’d love to have been in any old rubbish. So I was bit gutted when I heard that’s what it was going to be like.

“There’s no McCoy… there’s no, you know… we’re not in it. Nor are we in the Christmas special let me tell you. I don’t think so anyway! Not unless they are going to shoot it next week.”

He also added:

“There’s all kind of rumours and counter-rumours and everything doing the rounds. One gets tired trying to refute things on Twitter and the like. Take it from me, I’m not in it.”

However, he does hope to return one day:

“The thing about Doctor Who of course is that if not now, then maybe some other time. That’s the beauty of it. We can always come back.”

McGann also commented on Peter Capaldi’s casting: “I think it’s in great hands… and hopefully he’ll swear like a trooper, like Malcolm Tucker!”

“We’ve got to set the Doctor off in a brand new direction. It’s chapter two of his life. Now something happens to him that changes the way he thinks and the way he will adventure from now on. You can celebrate an anniversary in many ways – I think the most productive one within the narrative is to say “This is where the story really starts. This is where he finds his mission, he finds his destiny.”

Moffat also added:

“We’re not fibbing – this one is going to change the course of the series. And it’s very rare in Doctor Who that the story happens to the Doctor. It happens to people around him, and he helps out – he’s the hero figure who rides in and saves everybody from the story of the week. He is not the story of the week. In this, he is the story of the week. This is the day of the Doctor. This is his most important day. His most important moment. This is the one he’ll remember, whereas I often think the Doctor wanders back to his TARDIS and forgets all about it.”

Moffat also discussed the dynamic between the three [known] Doctors featured in the 50th:

“I wrote it as the friction version. When you’re talking to yourself there are no limitations, there’s no holding back. You wouldn’t be kind or courteous. At the same time, because they are two loveable, madcap, caffeinated Doctors, they’re also quite fanboyish about each other. They think it’s quite cool. They’re not broody, upset Doctors – it’s more “There’s two of us! Brilliant!” But that’s mostly in the playing, because they were having such a good time together that they brought that out. They get giggly with each other. It is, by lovely accident, a tremendous double-act. They’re naturally funny together. Enough alike and enough dissimilar. Matt said it was like Laurel and Laurel, as if Hardy didn’t show up – except he does in the form of John Hurt!”

“The weird thing is there’s never that much contrast between Doctors. The truth is it’s not wildly different how they’re written. I’ve written quite a lot for both of them, and you just have the voice in your head, very clearly. Where they are similar is funny, because they’re practically in unison, and where they are different is David is a cheeky, sexy, genuinely cool Doctor, up against a Doctor who thinks he’s sexy and cool but is woefully wrong on that subject! And that’s just naturally funny.”

Moffat has revealed some details about how John Hurt’s mysterious Doctor came about. Speaking with SFX, Moffat said:

“Why not a mayfly Doctor, who exists for one show only? I’d often thought about that. Would it be weird in the run of the series to have the 45th Doctor turn up and be played by Johnny Depp or someone? Would that be a cool thing to do?

“There was also the idea that if you could bring one classic Doctor back, you’d actually, impossibly, want it to be William Hartnell. You wouldn’t want any of the others. You’d want him to come and say ‘What in the name of God have I turned into?’ That’s the confrontation that you most want to see, to celebrate 50 years.

“Going round and round in circles on it I just thought ‘What about a Doctor that he never talks about?’ And what if it is a Doctor who’s done something terrible, who’s much deadlier and more serious, who represents that thing that is the undertow in both David and Matt. You know there’s a terrible old man inside them. Well, here he is, facing the children he becomes, as it were.”

Over the past few months Steven Moffat has stressed that no Classic era Doctors will be featured in the The Day of the Doctor.

Moffat said in an interview with SFX magazine (#241, out 16 October):

“The absolute reality was we didn’t have all those Doctors about to come back through the door. There were limitations to who we could get back.

“They’re all brilliant, they’re all terrific, but time has passed. I think it would be beyond the dignity of all those very fine actors to want to force themselves back into a costume from 20 or 30 years ago.

“I was thinking more “What would be a grand old story for the Doctor? And what would speak to the generation who are watching it now, while still celebrating the fact that it’s been around for all that time?” Everyone wanted to see David again – that’s just a fact. And David and Matt together are glorious. That’s a joy.”

Here are six high quality pictures from the 50th Anniversary special, The Day of the Doctor. These images feature Matt Smith, David Tennant, John Hurt, Jenna Coleman and Jemma Redgrave. These pictures had been released earlier but these are much better quality than before.

Steven Moffat has given a little insight on why Christopher Eccleston turned down the chance to appear in the 50th anniversary special, The Day of the Doctor.

In an interview in SFX magazine (#241, out 16 October), Moffat says: “I had an initial contact with Chris [Eccleston] and, in a very amiable and gentlemanly way, he didn’t feel that he could come back to it.

He adds: “There wasn’t any big fuss about it – I had a couple of meetings with him, and he was perfectly pleasant, and indeed quite enthused about the show, but he just doesn’t do that, it’s just not him.”

Peter Davison, the Fifth Doctor has been dropping hints that the Doctor regeneration limit will be addressed very soon and that Moffat has already worked out how it will be dealt with.

Davison was quoted saying: “I know people are worried about it, but I think there will be a way around that rule. I know that Steven has put in the groundwork already in an episode so that there can be more.”

Some rumours have circulated that it will be addressed in The Day of the Doctor. It would certainly be a great way to secure the future of the show as Moffat has told fans that he is planning to do, and what better time than during the 50th anniversary.

If John Hurt’s Doctor is going to count as a true incarnation of The Doctor, it’s also something that will need to be addressed sooner rather than later.